1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to vehicular driving assist apparatus and method for determining a locus of run to a target position and assisting the driving of a vehicle so that the vehicle follows the locus of run.
2. Description of the Related Art
A related-art technology for guiding a vehicle to a target position through the use of the automatic steering, the steering command, etc., is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 10-278825. In this related technology, a reference amount of operation of a brake pedal is pre-set in order to adjust the vehicle speed in accordance with the response speed of a steering actuator during the automatic steering. A deviation between the reference amount of operation and the actual amount of operation caused by the driver is calculated, and is indicated to the driver. Therefore, the vehicle speed is prevented from becoming excessively high and low, so that appropriate automatic parking control becomes possible.
In this technology, the vehicle speed is uniformly set. However, in an actual control, the vehicle speed in the case where the steering angle is changed by driving the steering actuator and the vehicle speed in the case where the steering angle is maintained do not need to be the same If the vehicle speed is uniformly set, there is a possibility that the driving to a target position may consume an inconveniently long time or that sufficient vehicle speed cannot be obtained despite a driver's desire for increased speed and thus controllability may become low.